


We Should Just Kiss (Like real people do)

by kattastic99



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Human Ryan Bergara, M/M, Shane tries really hard to make Ryan think vampires aren't real, Sharing a Bed, Some pretty solid banter if I do say so myself, Unfortunately Ryan has eyes, Vampire Shane Madej
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattastic99/pseuds/kattastic99
Summary: Wrote this as a birthday present to a friend of mine! And then shared it four days before their birthday because I have the patience of a small ferret.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 14
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [faithincarnate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithincarnate/gifts), [PoemIsDead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoemIsDead/gifts).



Doing Buzzfeed Unsolved with Shane could be exhausting at times, but for the most part Ryan was glad that Shane was the one he was working with. He had a way of draining the horror out of even the darkest places, just by being himself. It wasn’t that Shane made Ryan feel safe, so much as that Ryan simply couldn’t be afraid when Shane was around, because Shane being in any situation turned it into a comedy. Sure, he could be serious when he wanted to, like when Ryan was dealing with that nasty break-up, but. Well, Shane very rarely wanted to be serious. So when Shane approached him one day, not a smile or smirk to be found, and asked him for a “very serious favor,” Ryan felt the most nervous he’d ever been around his friend.

“I love ya buddy, but I already told ya that I won’t save you from demons,” Ryan said in a desperate attempt to lighten the situation. 

Shane didn’t smile.

Ryan swallowed down a bout of fear. “Okay, what’s wrong? Whatever it is, if I can help, I will.” Normally he’d smirk and say within reason, but Shane… He was never like this, and it was unnerving. 

Shane sat down next to Ryan, the cheap fluorescent lights of the cafeteria flickering above them. He didn’t even have any food, and today was hot dogs and sloppy joes. Under the lights, Shane looked more pale than Ryan had ever seen him. 

“I need you to come with me to a family function, of sorts. Except they’re not really my family, it’s.” Shane dragged his hand down his face in exasperation and more than a little stress. “I have some very distant, and very wealthy, relatives that live back in Poland still. And they’ve flown all the way out here to host a, a banquet, of sorts, and they invited me, and.” Shane turned away, more nervous than Ryan had ever been personally and he was the scaredy cat between the two of them, what the hell was going on here-

“They invited us both, actually. They, uh.” Shane finally turned back to face him. “They think we’re dating, and they want me to bring you with.”

For Ryan, just for a moment, the world shut down. Time stopped, and his brain shorted out completely.

Then he started laughing. “Dude, seriously?!” Shane still wasn’t smiling, and Ryan’s laughter petered off as he realized that yes, Shane was serious.

Then he laughed even harder. “Dude you looked like someone _ died _ , what the hell,” Ryan said, and Shane was finally smiling again. “Is the idea of dating me really that awful dude?” Ryan asked, and now Shane was laughing.

“Oh come on, it’s weird! It’s weird to just- what, I’m supposed to just, walk up to my best friend and say, oh, hey, the weather’s pretty nice lately, I have weird distant relatives I’ve met like twice and they think we’re banging and if I didn’t bring you it’d be awkward???” Shane asked with that big goofy grin of his. 

“There’s a difference between awkward and the fuckin, gloom and doom shit you were giving me! I mean, seriously what could possibly happen that would be horrible enough that you can’t even joke about it? You joke about everything, I told you a man died during a piano performance and the first thing you said was a poop joke!” 

Shane pointed at him. “Hey, you laughed yourself to tears cause of that poop joke, you don’t get to play innocent,” he said as Ryan just laughed again. “But, no, they’re like, really weird,” he said as his smile dimmed a bit. “I don’t want you to start like, accusing my sixth great aunt four times removed of being a demon or a vampire or something just cause she acts like some kind of, of, animatronic wax figure programmed by someone who barely passed a kindergarten test on human behavior.”

Ryan laughed at the mental image, but then he just smiled at Shane. “Come on, it’ll be fine. Weird people are just weird, unless she starts levitating or something I wouldn’t suspect her of not being  _ human _ . I mean, there are people with silver allergies, there are people who are even allergic to  _ sunlight _ . They’re still human.”

Shane gave him a Look, and Ryan knew immediately that he’d made a mistake. “Oh, wow, there are people who have allergic reactions to silver, and sunlight? Maybe even garlic? Man I wonder-”   
  
“No,” Ryan said, already done but powerless to stop him.

“I wonder if, if some seventh century beet farmer saw someone break out in hives, when they touched some kinda, holy platter or something-”

“Dude come on-”

“And assumed, oh, this person must be a monster or something! It’s almost as if-”

“Shane-”

“As if there are reasonable explanations for things! For everything!”

Ryan waited a moment. “You done?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Sure,” Shane said as he leaned back in the cafeteria chair. “As long as you agree to come with me to this dumb banquet thing. And also promise not to call aunt Gertrude a vampire.”

Ryan paused. “Her name’s Gertrude?”

Shane laughed. “No, her name’s Anastazja, but she’ll probably get really mad if you call her that. Let her introduce herself and call her whatever she tells you.” Shane sat up. “Actually, just go ahead and do that for everyone.”

Ryan gave him a Look of his own. “Including you?”

Shane blinked at him. “Yes, I am Lord Fluffernutter the third, Duke of the highlands of the western ridge of caramel and lord of the salted popcorn fields.”

Ryan laughed. “Alright, Lord Fluffernutter, no need to get your taffy twisted. I’ll come with, sure. And don’t worry,” he said as Shane opened his mouth, “I won’t call any of your weird relatives a vampire.”

* * *

As they sat down at an overly ornate, exceptionally long dining table in a hall Ryan was pretty sure could fit his entire house, he looked up and down the table at the forty two other people present. 

He was pretty sure every fucking one of them was a vampire.

Ryan had honestly, truly tried to be understanding, he kept what Shane had said in mind, that they were reclusive and rich and a lot of them had very weird, rare allergies, and that he didn’t want Ryan to make a scene. So Ryan wasn’t going to make a scene. He’d noticed that there was plenty of polished aluminum and platinum but no silver, all the windows had thick stained glass, one of Shane’s relatives had to ask him if he was allergic to thyme, mint, or oregano because those were the only seasonings their kitchens used, no salt…. Ryan had taken it all in stride. He was wearing a nice, formal outfit, not a suit but definitely not casualwear either, and Shane was wearing an outfit lifted practically right out of a 20s fashion magazine, and every single person here was wearing something from completely different regions and periods and Ryan was pretty fucking sure Uncle Eugeniusz was wearing fucking Buddhist Monk robes, but it was fine! Didn’t mean they were vampires, he and Shane had been over this many, many times. 

An almost alarming amount of times.

But it was fine, Ryan wasn’t gonna jump to any hasty conclusions. 

Until he had tried to find one of the sixty bathrooms in this fuckin castle sized mansion, and rounded the corner to see dear great aunt Anastazja levitating six feet off the ground to realign a chandelier in the hallway that had started hanging crooked. 

Ryan had to pull Shane aside to tell him this, but all Shane had said was “Can this please wait until after dinner? Please?” And of course Ryan couldn’t raise a fuss, not there, not then. So here he was, sitting at a ludicrously fancy dining table, surrounded by vampires, and sipping at a glass of white wine when every single other glass at the table had red wine. 

Ryan was putting in a lot of effort to pretend it was red wine. 

“You aren’t a vegetarian, are you dear?” One of Shane’s relatives whose name Ryan had already forgotten asked him. 

Ryan startled, almost spilling his wine, and smiled awkwardly. “Oh, n-no, I’m fine with pretty much anything. I’ve had to eat some pretty weird stuff for work before.”

The man’s eyes lit up, mostly figuratively but Ryan couldn’t rule anything out at this point. The dude was dressed in what Ryan could only possibly describe as Murder Fasion, it looked like something straight out of a painting of some old royal military commander. Nothing but medals and adornments and maybe three whole splashes of color. “Yes, I’ve seen some of your work!” 

Ryan blinked, then chuckled nervously. “W-wow, really? I didn’t think v- r- uh, I didn’t think that, our videos were, popular. In. Poland.”

The man laughed, and Shane, who was sitting to the left of Ryan, bopped the side of Ryan’s leg with his knee. “I was just checking up on Shane, and I. Mm, how do you say…..” The man trailed off for a moment, mumbling in, Ryan was pretty sure, six different dead languages. “Ah, fell down the hole of rabbit!”

Ryan nodded, smiling, desperate to be free of this hell. “They’re good at that, I’ve heard.” The man seemed confused and about to ask a followup so Ryan deployed an evasive maneuver. “So why did you ask if I was a vegetarian?”

“Ah, yes! All of the dishes tonight, they are very meat heavy.”

Ryan picked up his glass of wine. “Is that so?”

Shane spoke up this time, relieving Ryan from the ordeal of conversing with a man who Ryan was really fucking hoping wasn’t a member of the Tepes family. “Yeah, like half of the family has a lot of money in the meat industry, so most of the food at these things is.” Shane looked down into his wine, sipping as he spoke into it. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Ryan asked. He thought he heard something like-

Colonel Creep on Ryan’s right spoke up again. “Ah, the entre is here! The finest blood sausage you’ll ever taste.”

Ryan turned and glared at Shane, who was currently attempting to commune with the ancestral vines of the wine he was drinking, judging by how hard he was staring into it. 

By the time dinner was over, and Ryan and Shane were being escorted through the halls and to their room by the single palest man Ryan had ever seen in his life, he had to admit that you could actually do a whole fuckin lot with blood. 

He was almost embarrassed that he thought black pudding was actually pudding until they brought out a bunch of little sausages. 

“Here you are,” the, creepy butler dude, said. “A private wash room is connected to the room, and there are towels in the closet. Have a nice night.”

Ryan hurried into the room and barely even looked at all the obscene displays of wealth he was sure were there, because he was too busy formulating his rant. Until, of course, he noticed the bed. Sure, it was ostentatious and kinda creepy, but. There was only one. And it was barely a queen sized. It had four posters and curtains for privacy and oh good god was that lube on the night stand?! 

Shane walked in and closed the door behind him. “Alright, so-”

Ryan was standing by the night stand, holding the offending bottle. 

“Dude is that lube?” Shane asked.

Ryan turned around. “This is fuckin KY jelly. How did they even get this?”

Shane shrugged. “The store?”

Ryan, finally, exploded. “They’re fuckin VAMPIRES. WHY WOULD THEY GO SHOPPING FOR LUBE?!”

Shane wanted to sigh, but seemed happy to entertain any discussion not inherently vampire focused, so he just shrugged as he approached the bed. “Do you know how to make lube? Cause nobody else here does, so they had to get it from somewhere.”

Ryan plopped down on the bed. “Dude.”

Shane sighed out loud this time, and worked on getting his shirt off. When it was off, he tossed it onto a chair that Ryan was sure cost more than his car. “Yeah. I know.” Shane took his pants off, but kept his boxers on, and then rummaged around in an ornate dresser for a bit before pulling on a pair of grey sweatpants. Ryan was done questioning this place’s furnishings. 

Shane sat down next to him, not looking at him but keeping him in his peripheral vision. “I guess you have questions, huh?”

Ryan took a deep breath, and he saw Shane brace himself. “How the fuck do you guys get away with lying to the IRS all the time?”

“What?” Shane asked.

“Like, sure, you fake your death, whatever. But then you’re legally dead. So how the hell does a grown man then just show up suddenly, with absolutely zero records, and get a brand new identity, without anybody ever asking questions? And this happens, what, all the time? You’re telling me the government is trusting? The  _ government _ ???”

Shane just blinked down at him. “I just take the new ID papers they give me, I don’t know how it works.”

“So you have people for that??” Ryan asked, excitement pouring out of him. “Like, there’s- okay wait, no, first thing’s first, hold on-” and Shane braced himself again. “Was that dude sitting next to me fucking Dracula?!” 

Shane just blinked at him again. “Uh. No. He was just related to him, I think. Not every fifteenth century Romanian vampire is Dracula, dude.”

Ryan stared at him. “Are there a lot of fifteenth century Romanian vampires?”

Shane shrugged. “There’s a few. Vlad wasn’t one of them though, which.” Shane struggled to hold in a smile, but he couldn’t. “I mean come on that’s just funny.”

Ryan tried, so hard, not to laugh. But in the end, it was a pointless battle. “Oh my god, oh my god that’s the stupidest- like WHY, though?! Why wasn’t he?! They’re clearly real, which by the way-”

Shane held up his hand. “Yeah, by the way, what happened to ‘people with weird allergies are still human?!’ You said you’d keep an open mind!”

“Aunt Gertrude was fucking levitating, you literally agreed that was a deal breaker-”

“Her name’s Anas-”

“I know what her name is, oh my god Shane you-” Ryan stopped short, and Shane looked at him. 

“Uh. Ryan, you alright buddy?”

“Oh my god.” Ryan was almost speechless. “Oh my god you’re such an idiot, why did you try to touch holy water soaked rosewoo- WHY DID YOU LET A PRIEST BLESS YOU?!”

Shane shrugged. “What was worse, me going into church or you eating rotten fish soup? I work at Buzzfeed dude, you do what you gotta.”

Ryan put his head into his hands. “Oh, my god. Oh my god Shane I have almost sprayed you with that water gun so many fuckin times.”

Shane wrapped an arm around Ryan’s shoulders, and leaned into him, and oh that was. Nice, in a weird way. “If it makes you feel better, it wouldn’t have done anything. Most of that kinda stuff only works if you’re trying to defend yourself. It’s all about intent.”

Ryan chuckled, leaning back into Shane’s touch. “Well, that’s good to know. So what about sunlight?” 

Shane shrugged again, but this time Ryan felt it since they were so close. “I work for humans. Most of the sun and reflection stuff has to do with, like, god’s rejection? Or something? Like, silver burns cause it’s holy and it rejects us, and old mirrors used silver backs. But modern day mirrors use aluminum, digital cameras don’t use silver lined film, and the sun only burns if we’re hunting people. We can go around at day just fine, we just can’t feed in the day or we burn up. And even if I did feed, I work for humans, I have permission to be active in the sunlight.”

He said it so casually that Ryan was pretty sure Shane wasn’t even aware of the fact that he’d just confessed that he worked at Buzzfeed so he could drink people’s blood freely. Of course, then he tensed up, which Shane DID notice. 

“I said even if I did, dude, I don’t-” Shane frowned. “Come on.”

Ryan relaxed. This was Shane. “Yeah, I know. Although I guess now I know why you were so into seeing our blood when we did that hangover cure video.”

Shane laughed, his arm sliding a little lower down Ryan’s back. “Oh come on man I was so miserable I woulda puked if I’d licked so much as a drop.”

Ryan didn’t mind the fact that Shane had started lazily rubbing his back. This was nice. Comfortable. Warm, even. “So how do you feed, then?”

Shane paused his rubs, until Ryan grumbled at him. “Alright, alright. I mean. Mostly I just go to clubs, y’know? Do you have any idea how many people are into neck biting? It’s like, most people. Most people are into it. And it heals so fast, all people really think is ‘holy shit that was one awesome hickey.’ If you don’t drink that much, you’ll be fine. Besides the human stomach can handle like, four liters before it explodes. Have you ever chugged a two liter bottle of pop in a single sitting? Not easy. We take like, a few cups max and then we’re good for like three days.”

Ryan nodded. “So can you float too?”

Shane snorted, sliding back on the bed and lying down with his arm over his face as he laughed. “You callin’ me short, Bergara?”

Ryan wheezed, he literally wheezed, as he flopped back onto the bed next to Shane. “Okay, I walked into that one. But seriously, what can you do?”

Shane rolled over, so close to his face that Ryan could do nothing but look at him. “Well. I could kiss you.”

It said a lot about Ryan that this was the weirdest thing that he’d heard today. “Uh.”

Shane didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, and wow actually if vampires didn’t have to breathe then- Ryan cut his train of thought off. This was important. “I mean. I’m not against it, I just. I mean I’m wondering why all of a sudden, y’know?”

Shane exhaled, and his breath smelled minty. Why? Then Ryan realized that all Shane had eaten were the mint leaves on Ryan’s Extra Rare steak. “Well, you know now. I mean….” He rolled back over, looking up at the weird little bed roof thing, and Ryan found himself missing Shane already. “It’s one thing to lie to you about ghosts and vampires and demons and monsters and shit when we’re best friends. It’s a shitty thing and I already hated it, dude. I couldn’t. I couldn’t, couldn’t  _ date you _ and keep lying. I’m even allowed to tell people if we’re together, if we’re committed enough, and they must have thought we already were, so I asked you to come, and. I hoped you wouldn’t notice. Cause if you did, then I wouldn’t have any reason not to tell you how much I love you. And if I could tell you…”

Ryan reached up, hand clasping Shane’s shoulder gently and tugging him over, so Shane roller back over and faced him. “If you could tell me, then there was a chance I might say no.”

Ryan pushed closer and kissed Shane right in the mouth. “Not gonna lie, kinda wanna see what the deal is with those hickeys, if you’re feeling peckish.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this up in a flurry of productivity. Sorry if it isn't quite as good as the first, but I'm still rather proud of it!

Ryan woke up to the heavily tinted sun streaming through the window of the room he and Shane were staying in, and the distinct weight of several needlessly gangly limbs splayed over him. Ryan fought through the lingering haze of sleep, the grogginess that muffled his thoughts and made the world seem slick and too quick to process, and struggled to remember what had happened. 

When he tried to sit up, the arm Shane had draped across his chest slipped down and he rolled over, grabbing at the blankets and tugging them off Ryan’s lap. As Ryan sat there, looking over at Shane in the colorful light coming through the window, a whole lot of things slammed back into his thoughts at once; Shane was a vampire, vampires were real, neither Ryan nor Shane were wearing shirts, and Ryan was pretty fucking sure he had a third degree hickey on his neck.

Ryan thanked whatever force was listening for the soft carpet on the floor as he got out of bed, reaching up to touch the decidedly sensitive spot on his neck. He stumbled towards the bathroom, grateful it was connected, and almost went blind when he opened the door and his eyes were assaulted by the brightly sunlit marble, glass, and…..

Ryan blinked the spots out of his eyes as he entered the bathroom fully, walking over to the bathtub in utter disbelief. 

Ryan stood there, shirtless, crusty, half asleep and slightly hungover from too much wine, and gaze down at a rose diamond encrusted bathtub with solid gold faucet and diamond studded handles. 

He blinked several times, hoping it would go away, but when the monstrosity before him refused to vanish he turned and headed for the shower stall. When he opened the sliding glass door and found that the floor was tiled with jade and lapis and had sapphires embedded in the stone for grip, Ryan turned right back around and started filling the bath tub with probably too hot water. 

Thirty minutes later, nice and clean and dried off with embroidered towels that Ryan couldn’t afford to use as curtains let alone as towels, he ambled out into the bedroom to get dressed. 

Shane was, of course, awake to see Ryan walk buck naked into the room, sat up against the headboard and fiddling on his phone. Then he looked up, saw Ryan, stared for a few seconds, and then finally said, “Damn. I had a bit planned for this but I thought I was gonna be the naked one.”

Ryan was blushing about as red as could be, but he simply continued walking to the dresser to get some clothes, unaware that the red flush had spread all the way around to his upper back. “Well now I have to ask what the bit was,” he said as he bent down to shuffle through available shirts for something that wouldn’t make him look like a total douche.

“Well,” Shane said as he sat up straighter and, Ryan was absolutely positive of this, get a better look. “I was gonna make a bigfoot joke, and tell you to bust out the old mating call if you were feeling frisky.”

Ryan paused, shirt in hand and underwear next on his list. “Fuck, that’s pretty good actually,” to which Shane yelled “I know!”

Ryan opened one of the drawers to search for some pants, and Shane got out of bed to start ranting. “It was a perfect bit, and now you’ve ruined it. I needed at least a week to come up with a funny joke to make about seeing you naked on accident.” Shane smiled as he watched Ryan get dressed. “I already have seven for seeing you naked on purpose.”

Ryan laughed as he buttoned up the pants he’d chosen. “Okay well,” he said, right before he then unbuttoned the pants and tugged them and his underwear down, “There you go, now you can say one of them.”

Shane pouted immediately. “Damn it, you called my bluff,” to which Ryan laughed harder than before. 

“Wait no!” Shane shouted with glee, “I’ve got one! If you wanted me to suck you there you should have said something before I went for your neck!”

Ryan blushed again. “God damn it, you’re way too quick with these.” 

The shit eating grin on Shane’s face was not a calming sight. “Oh, trust me, I take my time when it counts.”

Ryan bent down, grabbed a shirt, and threw it at Shane’s face, who fell back onto the bed in a fit of laughter. “Go wash up and get dressed, will you? I wanna get out of here as soon as we can, this place gives me the heebie jeebies.”

Shane kept chuckling as he got back out of bed and headed to the bathroom. “Alright, alright, I’ll hurry up.” He vanished through the bathroom door without closing it, which allowed Ryan to hear Shane say “Holy shit, what the fuck is up with this tub?!”

Ryan called out to him, “Check out the shower stall!”

There was a few moments of silence, and then, “Oh my god.” There was a pause, and then, “I’m gonna pee in this shower. This is just grotesque, I have to defile it or I’ll lose every last shred of my self respect.”

Ryan grimaced, and finished stuffing the last of his items into his pockets. “Okay, you do that, I’m gonna go. Try and find the way out of here and start the car,” he said. He waited for Shane to respond, but all he heard was the shower starting up so Ryan shrugged and headed out of the bedroom. 

The hallway was about as opulent and imposing as he remembered it being, but without the haze of the wine he was noticing a lot of details as he wandered blindly looking for the exit. Like how, underneath all the opulence and garish displays of wealth, the hallway didn’t actually look all that  _ nice _ . All the paintings were old and cracked, not maintained in the least; the frequent small tables holding candelabras or vases or other decorative items all had peeling varnish, and the decorations themselves were grimy and covered in dust. The carpet, a deep red velvet down the center with golden bands down the sides that touched the walls, had a lot of splotches of something or other that stained the fabric. The molding along the bottom of the walls was peeling, the banded wallpaper was so dirty that Ryan didn’t even notice the golden floral filigree patterns until he got close, and there was water damage all over the place. The chandeliers all hung perfectly, but they were all thick with dust and tarnished to the point of just looking dirty. 

The fact that the rooms he’d been in were clean, but the hallways were decrepit, filled him with a deep sense of unease. Of course, just when he was starting to freak out about not being able to find a way out, he rounded a corner and found the dining hall again, and he saw the hallway that led to the front of the manor, and the exit. 

And then that pale ass creepy butler dude was suddenly in front of him, like he’d fucking teleported in between Ryan’s blinks, and Ryan yelped before nervously chuckling. “O-oh, hey, didn’t. See you there. Uh…. I’m sorry, my name is Ryan Bergara,” he said as he held out a faintly shaking hand, “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

The man looked at his outstretched hand for a moment, then another one, just long enough for it be extremely awkward, but the second Ryan started withdrawing the man’s hand shot out and gripped his before giving it a shake. “Grzegorz Bujwid,” he said, and Ryan tried not to freak out about the visible black claws he had instead of fingernails, or the fact that his skin felt like old paper and was deathly cold. “I hope you enjoyed the room,” he said with a smile that Ryan was pretty sure was supposed to be calming, but just came off as threatening. 

“U-uh, y-yup, it was, it was great. Very soft bed, very, very nice,” Ryan stammered out as he withdrew as far away as he could without seeming rude. Grzegorz just seemed amused, like a cat watching a mouse run and hide. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw another servant in a corner, cleaning the first cobweb Ryan had seen in this place. As he glanced over, he found out why there weren’t any other spider webs. 

“Holy shit!” He yelped, and Grzegorz looked over at the servant Ryan had watched gobble up a spider and then suck up the web like licking chocolate off their finger. 

“Halina!” Grzegorz yelled across the dining hall, getting the servant’s attention immediately. “We have the jars for a reason! Eat on your own time!” The servant looked sheepish, and fetched a glass jar from a cart Ryan hadn’t noticed, and scooped the rest of the webs into it before sliding it back into the cart and wheeling it off into the darkness. 

“My apologies,” Grzegorz said as Ryan tried not to freak right the fuck out, “The manor isn’t usually occupied, so the staff have lost most of their sense of decorum. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go check on the Duchess, so,” and this time Ryan didn’t blink when he vanished, so he could see that Grzegorz didn’t teleport, so much as he just moved really,  _ really _ fast.

To an outsider observer, it might have seemed as if Ryan ran out of the dining hall and towards the front door as fast as he could, but Ryan was only power walking, and he would stand by that claim until the day he died, which he really fucking hoped wasn’t gonna be today.

Ryan stopped short, though, the grand entrance in sight, when he heard a rather shrill voice yell at him to “Stop right there young man!”

He whirled around, but he didn’t see anybody. Until, of course, an elegant but simplistic dress entered his field of view from above, slowly floating downwards until Shane’s great aunt or whatever was standing in front of him. 

He wanted to call her Gertrude but he was pretty sure he’d be murdered if he did that, so he wracked his brain until he remembered what she told him the night before and stammered out “M-my apologies, Madam Gielgud.”

The older woman sniffed. She didn’t even look all that old, barely sixty, but Ryan was pretty sure she was at least four hundred years old. “Honestly,” she said derisively, “running in the halls of an estate you don’t even belong to! What if you had broken a vase?” 

Ryan looked around. There was literally nothing in this hallway. “Uh.”

Then she sighed. “Alright, yes, this place is filthy and it would probably be an improvement to the decor, but you still shouldn’t run about! You almost knocked into my dress shoes. If you’d been even six inches taller-”

Ancient vampire nobility or not, Ryan wasn’t gonna take a short joke standing. “Sure, Gertrude, whatever, I’m gonna leave now.”

A look of shock crossed her face, and Ryan turned around and started power walking towards the exit before she decided to rip his throat open. Then he heard her laughing, and he sped up. 

He’d barely made it to the car and gotten it started before Shane opened the passenger door and slid into the car. “Jeez, you sure took your time starting the car,” Shane said.

Ryan glared at him. “Hey, I had to get out of the fuckin Transylvanian Manor by myself. I saw a lady eat a spider and then aunt Gertrude almost kicked me in the face because she was floating again!”

Shane immediately started wheezing. When Ryan glared at him harder, he just wheezed even more. “You are, so lucky she likes me,” Shane said in between loud bursts of wheezing laughter. “I’m pretty sure nobody else could have called her Gertrude to her face.”

Ryan deflated, his worries and fears melting away like ice under the sun. “She told you? Oh my god dude I seriously thought I was gonna die.”

Shane kept laughing, but he’d calmed down. “No way, man, you were my guest. Hospitality rules are sacred, especially when it comes to humans.”

Ryan just stared at him. “You are literally the most disrespectful person I have ever known in my life when it comes to visiting other places.”

Shane just smiled at him, and reached over to prod his shoulder as Ryan buckled up. “When we’re going to fake haunted houses and shit, yeah. We have yet to go to a vampire’s lair, and even then.” Shane shrugged, then buckled himself up. “Like I said, I work for humans. I get a pass on most things.”

Ryan shifted the car into reverse and started pulling out of the parking lot. “Yeah, about that. Since we’ve got a bit of a drive, you mind answering some more questions?”

Shane chuckled. “I bet you planned this.” When Ryan protested, he laughed and pressed on. “No, seriously, I bet you planned this, cause I can’t just make out with you and distract you when you’re driving.”

Ryan laughed too. “Eh, I dunno, road head can be tempting sometimes. But no, I didn’t plan this, it just seemed like a good time and also.” Ryan glanced over at Shane, his expression very serious. “You owe me explanations.”

Shane’s smile dimmed, but he just nodded. “Yeah, I do. Ask away!” He said with a grand gesture.

Ryan shifted gears again and drove out of the lot, sliding into traffic easily. “Alright so, like, first off: what’s with the working for humans thing? Like, you just said it gives you a pass?”

Shane nodded, digging in his pocket for his phone to keep himself occupied. “Yeah. I mean, we were all human once, y’know? And then we weren’t, and we got cool powers and a long life span out of it, but it’s got rules. There’s a reason all the famous vampires are nobility, you know, or heads of house or rich people or whatever.”

Ryan let out a little hmm. “I just thought it was because it was easy to get all that when you’re a vampire.”

Shane nodded, opening up a mindless mobile game. “That’s part of it, sure. But it all ties into the same set of rules that prevents us from entering people’s homes uninvited. It’s all about hospitality. Vampires are bound to the rules of the House they work for. Most vampires seek to hit the head of whatever group they’re employed for, so they can call the shots. A noble house has land of its own, places that are thus protected from wayward vampires. If you’re just a dude, then you don’t have any power of your own. You’re an individual, held to the standards of hospitality. You break the rules, it’s you who’s in trouble.”

Shane cursed under his breath as he lost a round of whatever dumb little game he was playing. “Of course even a vampire noble is still bound to the rules, but they have a lot more say. They’re the ones that stand out. They like to stick with the old ways, but modern times have gotten way more lax as the high society types have gotten far more concentrated and far fewer in number. Class divides have gotten way, way worse than they ever used to be, and the humans in charge still have their weird rules but it’s far less known to the common folk. I mean, how many people go to etiquette school anymore? Nobody cares unless they were raised to care, and the only people who raise their kids to care about that shit are rich assholes. So, to really blend in, you gotta act like a normal person, or be someone with so much power that it doesn’t matter if you don’t.”

Ryan nodded along. “Makes sense, sure, but what’s that have to do with working for humans?”

Shane looked up. “Oh yeah. Uh, basically, the rules that govern you are the rules of your House, or who you work for. If you have a steady job working for a human led organization, then you’re bound by the rules humans are. Vampires that work for or live under other vampires are protected too, but the vampire who sponsors them or rules them receives the punishment for their infractions. So if you fuck up, you’re in a shitload of trouble because your boss just got burned or stabbed or something instead of you, and they’re not gonna just let you get away with that shit. But I work for humans, and humans aren’t held to vampire standards.”

Shane shrugged. “It’s supposed to go to the person who turned you in those cases, but mine died so I get to exploit this loophole for the rest of time.”

Ryan blinked. “Your sire died?”

Shane nodded, focused on his game again. “Yeah, he got bombed during a blitz in the early forties. Vampire or not, you can’t survive being turned into soup.”

“Uhhh,” Ryan said as he turned onto the highway. “Okay. Not super sure what to do with that information.”

Shane poked at his game some more, but glanced up at Ryan. “I dunno, just don’t blow me up. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that.”

Ryan laughed. “Okay, fair enough. Don’t bomb my best friend, got it.” 

Then he yelled “Shit, wait, boyfriend! You’re my boyfriend now, fuck, I’m sorry!”

Shane looked up from his phone. “Oh, that’s cool. Aren’t we supposed to go on a date first though?”

Ryan took his eyes off the road for two solid seconds to stare at Shane. “You took me to a family dinner and then sucked my face off, shirtless, in bed.”

Shane blinked at him. “Well yeah, it was tuesday.” He said it deadpan, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. 

“Man. This friday is gonna be wild, then.” Ryan said with a matching grin. He reached up to touch the hickey as he slowed down and stopped for a red light. “It really did just feel like a hickey, too. You actually fed?” He asked as he turned to look at Shane fully.

“Yup,” Shane said. “Like I said, it heals super fast. Plus there’s some, like, sedative or something in our spit. I read that humans have it too, we just make a lot more of it. If we weren’t immune we’d be dozy all the time.”

Ryan blinked. “Well that explains why my tongue went numb last night.”

Shane gestured up. “Green light dude,” and Ryan cursed and hit the gas a little harder than strictly necessary. 

“So. Will your spit always do that?” Ryan asked in a suspiciously nonchalant tone of voice.

Shane picked up on it and grinned. “No, only when we’re feeding. Our fangs aren’t out all the time, we only drug up when they’re out. So you’ll definitely still feel the blowjobs.”

Ryan blushed, but didn’t say anything. “Okay so like. Ghosts, and shit. They’re real, right?”

Shane harrumphed. “Some stuff’s real, some stuff isn’t. Bigfoot isn’t real, the Jersey Devil isn’t real, Chupacabra is a coyote with mange, but Mothman is an omen of disaster in physical form and the Flatwoods Monster was an automated chemical weapon.”

Ryan changed lanes, and then glances at Shane. “Suspicious lack of a mention of ghosts there buddy.”

Shane shut his phone off and threw up his hands. “Alright, fine, ghosts are real! Whatever!! We’ve never fuckin found one, literally every haunted house or prison or spooky asylum which, ableist as shit by the way, they’ve never been haunted! None of em! Not a single spectre in any of the most famous, spookiest places we have ever done an episode on. Ghosts don’t work like that, they’re not just, stuck in some place and going about some weird business or something. They visit their loved ones from time to time, they visit dreams, they show up for the funeral, they hang out at their grave when relatives come visit, and that’s it. They are there when they are remembered, and they don’t exist when they’re not. They’re more a byproduct of people’s grief than a dead person’s soul, anyways.”

Ryan had exactly one thing to take out of that. “So poltergeists are legit?”

Shane gave him the single most exasperated glare Ryan had ever received from him. “Yes, Ryan, poltergeists are legit. Otherwise known as  _ normal ass psychic powers _ .”

Ryan slapped the wheel in excitement so hard that the horn honked for a split second, but he was too pumped up to be spooked by it, although Shane let out a little “Fuck!” when it happened. “So paranormal abilities exist too! Jesus, Shane, you’ve always given me so much shit-”

Shane cut him off by waving his hands angrily. “I give you shit for being so spooked by literal nothing, and I think it’s silly how gullible you are when people claim to be psychic or see ghosts or some other bullshit. Humans make shit up, their brains make shit up, they dream and forget it was a dream, they’re just plain WRONG about shit all the goddamn time- Ninety seven percent of all the shit you hear about supernatural stuff is total nonsense.” He paused, reconsidered, and said “Okay more like, sixty percent if you factor in old lore and stuff. Cultures that exist in the same place for hundreds and hundreds of years know what the fuck is happening around them, or at least they have a really good idea. People making shit up for internet clout or money don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

Ryan switched his blinker on and pulled off the highway, back into city streets. “Are demons real? Please tell me demons aren’t real, by the way.”

“Demons aren’t real,” Shane said.

“Oh thank fuck, really?” Ryan asked.

“No they’re real, you just asked me to tell you they aren’t.”

“God damn it Shane, what the f- Are they, are they as bad as I think they are?”

Shane shrugged, unlocking his phone and booting the game back up. “Not really, no. They don’t even do anything, really, they just show up sometimes. Sometimes people dream about them, sometimes they worship them, try to summon them or whatever. Never works. Demons are weird as fuck, dude, they’re seriously not something to be scared of. If you’ve had a rambunctious kitten, then you can handle a demon being pissed off at you. The worst one can do is give you bad luck, and it’s not even that bad.”

Ryan took a minute to let it sink in. The drive was helping him to stay calm, but. It was actually really soothing to hear that demons weren’t as deadly as he thought they were. “So. Annabelle wasn’t legit, then?”

Shane stopped moving. “I mean-”

“Oh come on, dude!” Ryan yelled. “I thought you said none of the places we’ve been were haunted!”

Shane shrugged, pointedly not looking at Ryan but not playing his game either. “In my defense, that wack ass museum  _ wasn’t _ haunted.”

Ryan glanced at Shane, incredulous. “But the doll was?!”

Shane shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “No, no, she wasn’t haunted or anything. I told you, ghosts don’t work like that.”

Ryan glanced at him again. “But demons do?”

Shane didn’t say anything for a moment. “Kinda.” He said softly. 

Ryan made a noise, and Shane started yelling over him. “Okay, no, calm down-”

“You’ve taunted so many demons-”

“It’s not that bad-”

“Told her to rip your heart out and LIVE IN YOUR CHEST-”

“Oh like she had the gumption to pull that off-”

“I still can’t believe you tried to open the fuckin’ door-”

“LOOK-”

“So was she a demon or not?!” Ryan finally shouted.

“She may or may not-” Shane started, but stopped when Ryan smacked him in the chest. “Fuck, you got me in the nipple there.” Ryan mumbled out a very angry “Sorry” and Shane continued. “Alright, yeah, technically she’s got a demon in her. But literally all it can do is give people bad luck. It’s seriously, honestly just coincidences that all that shit happened. That dude was having sleep paralysis, the guy on the motorcycle was laughing and not watching the road, shit happens when you’re scared or dismissive. I don’t even know which demon it is, but they’re not a threat no matter who they are.”

Ryan grumbled incoherently, ocassional mutterings of “Can’t fuckin believe” making it out. “Alright, well. What’s the most powerful demon?”

Shane looked up at him. “Uh. I mean, I don’t really know, but I can tell you which demon has had the most influence on our world.”

Ryan looked at him. “Really? Who is it?”

Shane was smiling now; he closed his game and pulled up Google. “Okay hold on, you’re gonna love this.”

“Oh I really doubt it,” Ryan said as he pulled up to the parking garage across the street from the Buzzfeed office. 

“Okay, okay, here,” Shane said as he handed Ryan his phone. Ryan pulled into an empty spot and looked at Shane’s phone.

“Prince Stolas, demonic prince of astrology, herbology and gemology,” Ryan said clearly as he read from the page. 

“Scroll down,” Shane said with a grin.

“..... Are you fucking serious.” Ryan said.

“He’s a furby!” Shane cackled.

“Are you  _ fucking _ serious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think that Prince Stolas thing was a joke, it wasn't. Look him up. He was designed in 1818 based off written depictions of the demon prince in various books that date back to around the fifteen hundreds. And he looks exactly like a Furby.
> 
> I am so not kidding right now.


	3. Chapter 3

Ryan walked through the door of the Buzzfeed building that was across the street from the parking garage, with Shane right behind him and still making furby jokes. Ryan was doing everything in his meager power to pretend that this wasn’t the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life, but the choked off wheezing and literal tears in his eyes were. A little bit of a giveaway, if he was being honest with himself.

“People have been making jokes for so long-” Ryan gasped out, “so fuckin long oh my god, do you think they knew? Or was it just-”

Shane clapped him on the shoulder, wheeze laughing himself. “It’s actually funnier if it’s coincidence. Like can you imagine, how hard Stolas worked, how much effort went into inspiring these designs, trying to get his image out there, trying to find worship, he scrubs, every last bit of his essence or influence that he can, and-”

“Literally millions of kids and parents just thought they were creepy anyways oh my god-” Ryan was honestly having difficulty breathing.

“Mommy, I don’t like it, its eyes are too big and it keeps yelling at me for attention why is it so scary” Shane said in a shrill mocking voice. “Oh calm down, Hannah,” Shane continued in a deeper voice, “It’s just a cute little animal toy,” and here Shane’s voice went back to normal “meanwhile the furby’s in the background spinning its head around and extolling the dark prince of the stars.”

Ryan and Shane continued laughing and falling all over each other all the way to their workstations, and only ran into Andrew after they’d booted their stations up and headed towards the coffee pot. 

“Hey guys,” Andrew said in his usual low timbre. He took a sip of coffee, but he paused with the cup touching his lips. “Nice love bite, Bergara.” He said, finished sipping his coffee, and walked away.

“W-wait,” Ryan said as his hand flew up to his neck, where he had legitimately forgotten there was a massive fucking hickey plastered all over the side of his neck. He whipped around, glaring at Shane who was pouring himself a cup of coffee. 

Shane looked up at him. “See, you shoulda thought of this when you asked me to suck your neck.”

Ryan raised his hands in affront. “Alright,” he said and dropped his hands with a huff, “I’m leaving.” He turned around and headed back to go do his job, ignoring Shane’s taunt of “You can’t hide from your sins, Bergara!”

Of course this didn’t exactly do much in terms of escaping Shane since their stations were right next to each other, but it gave him a good ten minutes while Shane nursed his coffee. Which was just enough time for Ryan to get absorbed in his research for the next episodes of Buzzfeed Unsolved so that he could ignore Shane coming back.

Riiight up until his mouse moved away from his hand when he went to move it. “What the f-” he said, looking over as he grabbed for it. This time he got to see it physically slide away from his hand.

Ryan turned around, slowly, giving Shane time to repent for his sins. “Alright. What the  _ fuck _ was that?”

Shane looked up from his computer screen, an over exaggerated look of innocent confusion on his shit eating face. “What was what?” Shane asked as Ryan’s mouse slid back over and bumped the side of his hand.

“How are you doing that?” Ryan asked in a furious whisper. His mouse was now repeatedly bumping his hand. He whipped back around and grabbed at it, but it just slid away again. “Jesus fuckin christ I swear to god Shane-”

Shane raised his hands as Ryan turned back around. “Alright, alright, I’ll spill the beans.”

The mouse bumped into his hand again, and Ryan finally understood what drove ordinary people to such drastic actions as murder. “It won’t even kill you,” Ryan said with a manic look in his eyes, “so I can stab you. I can literally stab you and you won’t die, there is _ no reason not to _ -”

“Okay okay!” Shane said with a grin. “I’ll stop, I promise.” Ryan immediately turned around and stared at his mouse, but when it didn’t move he warily turned back to face Shane. 

“If that bumps me one more fucking time-”

Ryan felt his spare pen flop up onto the back of his hand.

“You think you’re being cute but-” Ryan started before Shane cut him off.

“Oh I’m adorable. It’s my Gift, by the way,” Shane said, dropping just enough of a tantalizing mystery for Ryan to shelve the ‘stab Shane in the stomach’ plan for the time being.

“..... I know you’re just baiting me here, but. Tell me.” Ryan reluctantly calmed down, and promised himself that he would at least flick Shane in the nipple again at some point. 

Shane, for his part, just smiled and started typing again. “Probably shouldn’t say this kinda stuff out loud at work.” 

Ryan had never, in his entire life, been more tempted to destroy company property. But he had to admit that Shane had a point, and no matter how stabby he was feeling, he didn’t want Shane to get in any serious trouble. 

“We’re going to go over to my place and hang out today after work,” Ryan said very pointedly and with a heavy sense of finality. “We can talk then.”

Shane immediately turned and gave him the saddest face he’d ever seen. “But I have to see Obi!”

Ryan wasn’t having it. “And you will,  _ after _ we hang out.”

Shane tried the puppy dog eyes on him, and it might have worked if he hadn’t been such a shit with the mouse and the pen, but Ryan was too resolute. So Shane gave up, sighing dramatically. “Alright fine. But you’re buying takeout.” He said. 

“I’ll buy delivery, sure,” Ryan said just to be an over corrective dick about it. 

The rest of the work day passed with little fanfare, except for when Jen stopped by their desks and laughed herself dizzy about the hickey. Shane was quiet on the ride to Ryan’s place, and Ryan left him alone as he drove, the radio turned on and the company rather pleasant. 

Shane played on his phone, and Ryan went over the supplies he had at home to see if he could rig up a vision board complete with strings and photos with which to dredge up Shane’s entire history. 

The second Ryan had the car in park, Shane was back on his bullshit and making Ryan’s keys jangle obnoxiously. Ryan turned the car off and snatched the keys, stuffing them in his pocket with a glare. “What are you, a literal toddler?”

Shane shrugged as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “Hey, I’ve been keeping all this secret from you this whole time, forgive me for being excited.” Then he waggled his eyebrows and Ryan felt his zipper tug down.

A good ten minutes of blush filled blustering and friendly yelling later, Ryan had finally gotten his door open and all but shoved Shane into his apartment. He locked the door behind him with a dramatic flourish, intent on making this as silly as possible to try and cover up the remnants of unease and the few bitter tints of betrayal that Ryan was sick of feeling. 

“Alright, sit down, and tell me.  _ Everything _ .” Ryan said as he stared Shane down from across his living room. 

Shane jumped onto the couch and splayed his noodly limbs all over the place. “Thousands of years ago,” Shane said in a very dramatic voice which Ryan was pretty sure was a reference to something stupid.

“No,” Ryan said.

Shane pouted. “Oh alright fine. Where do you want me to start?”

Ryan plopped down in his favorite easy chair and gave Shane a Look. “Gifts?”

Shane’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!” He straightened all his limbs, stretched, and then relaxed again. “Okay so basically, everybody’s got a Gift, y’know? Like.” Shane sat up properly for once, hands moving about as he talked. “Like, I actually can float, but I had to learn how to do it, y’know? And no matter how much I might try, I’ll never be able to really  _ fly _ like Anastazja can. A vampire can learn how to do pretty much anything, honestly, but we’ll never be all that good at it. Except for our Gift. Everyone’s got something special that they can just  _ do _ , no training, and better than anybody else ever could. I can float a few inches, Anastazja could run maybe thirty miles per hour if she really tried, the creepy ass butler dude-” and god Ryan was so validated in that moment, “can maybe, like, bend a spoon with his mind.”

The remote control to Ryan’s TV lifted off the coffee table and fell into a neat little orbit around Shane’s head. “For telekinesis, you need eye contact and immense focus. But not me. I can move shit with half a thought from halfway across a football stadium.”

Ryan nodded. “Alright. So, every vampire has a unique talent, but any vampire can replicate any of them, just very poorly.”

Shane gave him a grin and a set of finger guns. “You got it!”

Ryan leaned back. Then his eyes went wide and he jumped out of his chair, pointing accusingly at Shane. “You fucker!”

Shane immediately broke out into laughter. “Yeah, it was me,” he said between coughing wheezes. 

Ryan stared at him. “Jesus christ dude you’re about to fall off the couch.”

Shane couldn’t stop. “The, the, god Ryan, the, the place with the, the thumb thing or, god I forget that place was so forgettable but it really only takes knocking on a door-”

Ryan threw his hands up and fell back into the chair. “Oh my god.”

There was a knock, then, at Ryan’s door. 

Shane raised his hands. “Swear to god that wasn’t me.” Then there was a knock from Ryan’s bathroom. “ _ That _ was me.”

Ryan heaved out a sigh and got up to answer the door. 

“I have your order,” some teenager in a Pizza Hut uniform said. He was holding a pizza carrying case full of pizza boxes and other shit, probably. 

“I didn’t order anything,” Ryan said, confused. Shane piped up from the living room. “Yeah that was me! I ordered in the car.”

Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Fine. How much do I owe you?”

The kid who was definitely not getting paid enough because nobody gets paid enough checked his tablet. “Uhh. Looks like it came to thirty seven forty two.” 

Ryan just stared at him. “Holy shit, what the fuck did he order?”

The kid scrolled down with his thumb. “One meat lover’s pizza, extra sausage extra cheese, and a double large order of breadsticks with garlic butter dipping sauce.” He scrolled down a little more. “Oh and a calzone.”

“Is that all?” Ryan asked as he fished out his credit card.

The kid scrolled down again. “Uh, he also asked for a pasta salad but we ran out.” He looked up. “Okay turns out it’s actually twenty three thirty six. Sorry.”

“This is bullshit you know!” Shane yelled out from the living room. The pizza kid looked over Ryan’s shoulder at him, and then flipped him off.

Ryan paused in the middle of signing the receipt, and gave him a fifteen dollar tip. In the notes he wrote ‘for extreme courtesy and respect.’

“Okay, there, give me the mountain of shit.” Ryan said, and spent the next five minutes trying to balance the ridiculous amount of food and close the door without putting anything down. 

When he finally got everything laid out on the table, Ryan froze. Then he glared up at Shane. “You could have shut the door for me! You didn’t even have to get up!”

Shane looked up at him, a slice of pizza already in his mouth. He took his bite, and swallowed. “I honestly forgot I could do that.”

Ryan sighed as he sat down, head in his hands. “The worst thing is, I really don’t think you’re lying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit shorter than the first two, sorry about that! I rushed it for the actual birthday date. A hypothetical fourth chapter would be longer, but it would also not be for several days, if it even happens.


End file.
